Eva Joly - Career

Career

Working as a secretary, she took her legal education at night school and became a magistrate when she was 38. Joly specialised in financial affairs, and in 1990 she joined the High Court of Paris as an investigating judge.

Here she quickly made a mark with her tireless crusade against corruption, in particular taking on, among others, former minister Bernard Tapie and the bank Crédit Lyonnais. Her most famous case, however, was that of France’s leading oil company – Elf Aquitaine. In the face of death threats, she carried on the case to uncover several cases of fraud, leading to the conviction of tens of persons involved in the oil business. In 2001, she received for this work the award for integrity from the non governmental organisation Transparency International.

In 2002 she was asked by the Norwegian Minister of Justice, Mr Odd Einar Dørum, to accept a three-year position as a special advisor on corruption. The Anti-Corruption and Money Laundering project involved cooperation between the Ministry of Justice and Police, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Norway. The project worked on issues related to financial crimes and organized crime, with a special focus on strong international cooperation. Collaboration with the Ministry of Finance was also important, in addition to strengthening connections to the private sector. The project has among other things led to a Norwegian focus on corruption in foreign affairs. During the three-year period Joly also initiated the Paris Declaration Against Corruption in 2003."The Paris Declaration- A call for against action against large scale corruption". Publish What You Pay. Transparency International. June 30, 2003. http://www.publishwhatyoupay.org/resources/paris-declaration-call-against-action-against-large-scale-corruption. Retrieved September 17, 2012.

In 2002, Reader's Digest named her European of the Year. The 2006 French film L'Ivresse du pouvoir (English title "Comedy of Power") is loosely based on Joly.

As of 10 March 2009, Joly is employed as a special adviser by the Icelandic government to investigate the possibility that white-collar crime may have played a part in the 2008–2012 Icelandic financial crisis.

On 10 June 2009, she was a guest at a popular talk show in Iceland - and implied that she would quit being an advisor to the Icelandic government if they did not do more to help the investigation.

On 7 June 2009, Joly was elected as a French member of the European Parliament on the Ile de France "Europe Écologie" list, on which she was 2nd to Daniel Cohn-Bendit. She is chair of the Committee on Development.

In 2011, Joly was competing in the primaries of Europe Écologie–The Greens against Nicolas Hulot, Stephane L'Homme and Henri Stoll to represent the merged parties at the president of France in the election of 2012. She was elected in the second round of voting against Hulot, with 58% of votes.

In the first round of the presidential election she received 2.3% of the vote, and subsequently endorsed Socialist Party candidate François Hollande for the second round.